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The Hyde Amendment and abortion

There is a lady I know personally who is married to an alcoholic. Her husband only works part-time and drinks away most of what he earns. He pays none of the household bills such as the house payment, car payment, utilities, and groceries — his wife pays all the bills with her income. It is always a struggle for her to meet the budget and there simply isn’t enough money to go around for the kid’s clothing and school needs. Concerned friends try to impress upon her the need for her slacker husband to contribute to the household expenses, but it’s a lost cause. He becomes enraged if she even brings up the subject. Everyone generally agrees that she is an “enabler” — she makes excuses for him and enables her husband to be a drunk by covering all of his share of the bills. She claims that “not one red cent” of her money goes to support his booze problem, but everyone knows she supports his habit through being an enabler.

I’ll bet just about everyone who reads this article would agree with the logic just presented. Why is it, then, that people fail to see the “enabler” connection when it comes to the Hyde Amendment and the abortion industry, particularly Planned Parenthood? The Hyde Amendment passed some 30 years ago prohibits federal tax money (Medicare) from going directly to pay for abortions. Abortion providers make the claim that because of the Hyde Amendment “not one red cent” of taxpayer money goes to provide abortions. They split up their money received from the government from voluntary contributions and money received for other services. Tax money gets designated for such things as contraceptives, Pap smears, counseling, lobbying efforts, “Pink Bus rides,” utility costs, etc. The other monies then go to fund abortions.

What people lose sight of is that money is “fungible.” You can’t tell one dollar bill from another. If the original budget called for $3 million dollars for utility costs, and $3 million in tax monies just came in, it’s a simple matter to simply swap the tax money in place of the utility money. All of a sudden there is $3 million dollars to pay for additional abortions. It’s a shell game, and the Hyde Amendment turns out to be a farce. If the annual half-a-billion tax dollars were taken away from Planned Parenthood, much of that money going towards abortions would of necessity be redirected towards the other budgetary needs. Planned Parenthood knows that, and that is why they are spending nearly $5 million to defeat Mitt Romney for president.

The “enabler” role was corroborated by a statistical study done earlier this year. Government funding was tracked beside the number of abortions done; a 99 percent correlation was discovered between the two — the more tax money received, the more abortions performed. When the rare but occasional decrease in tax money happened, fewer abortions were performed. That startling correlation was publicized by both the American Center for Law and Justice and the Alliance Defending Freedom organizations. It is the exact opposite of what Planned Parenthood claims — that no tax monies go for abortions. It is also contrary to their overriding liberal orientation on this issue — search the Internet for “Hyde Amendment” and you will discover plenty of articles written by political liberals who support pro-choice lamenting the “horrible injustice” done to low-income women by the Hyde Amendment. Planned Parenthood would love for the Hyde Amendment to be repealed.

A lot of folks mistakenly believe that the Hyde Amendment also applies to “ObamaCare.” Even if it did, it would still be the old “shell game,” but the fact is it doesn’t apply. The equivalent to the Hyde Amendment was the proposed Stupak-Pitts Amendment which basically said the same thing, but Obama and congressional Democrats worked like the devil to have the Stupak-Pitts Amendment omitted, and they succeeded. What ObamaCare creates — the health insurance exchanges, the requirement that every American has to purchase health insurance — in some cases these entities are required to provide abortions (source — American Center for Law & Justice). ObamaCare actually has a section entitled “Abortions For Which Public Funding Is Allowed.” That is the reason pro-life Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Mich., and the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops both strongly oppose ObamaCare even though they favor a government-run health care system.

The next time you hear someone dogmatically argue that the Hyde Amendment prevents abortion providers from using your tax dollars for abortions, please remember the concepts of “fungibility” and the “enabler role.” If you think an abortion every 95 seconds is too much now, just wait until ObamaCare goes into effect.

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Stephen Rowland is a Columbia resident with a master of arts degree in Biblical Studies who writes on issues from a conservative, Christian viewpoint. E-mail him at mrstephenrowland@aol.com.

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